This is appropriate in the case of Italian literary culture. This encyclopedia, with its companion volume Italian Women Writers, intends to make available for the first time to a wide public a field of intellectual endeavor that is now open only to a few specialists.Īs the title indicates, this encyclopedia is about literature in the traditional sense of the word. Among the general, college-educated readers, knowledge about feminist approaches to Italian writing, and even about the existence of Italian women writers, remains scanty. A great deal of critical work in this field has been done within the small programs of Italian studies, in the departments of history and comparative literature in academic institutions outside Italy. While in this country the acceptance of feminist theory and methodology by the academy is an achieved goal, in Italy studies and programs about women’s writing have been sketched so far almost entirely outside the universities. Over the last twenty years, there has been an increasing interest in feminist views of the Italian literary tradition both in Europe and in the United States.
In its introduction, that volume also sketches a history of women writers in Italy. In its comprehensive treatment of feminist themes, this volume complements Italian Women Writers, another Greenwood publication, which gathers fifty-one monographic chapters by a team of specialists on the most prominent Italian literary women from the fourteenth century to the present. It is not an encyclopedia of Italian women writers, although, of course, many writers considered here are women it is rather a companion volume for all those who wish to investigate Italian literary culture and writings, penned by women and men, in a feminist perspective. This feminist encyclopedia, the first one on Italian literature, is directed to the feminist scholar, the literary historian, and the general reader. Introduction The Feminist Encyclopedia of Italian Literature The paper used in this book complies with the Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z39.48–1984). Printed in the United States of America TM Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 96–35353 ISBN: 0–313–29435–6 First published in 1997 Greenwood Press, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. Copyright 1997 by Rinaldina Russell All rights reserved. Italian literature-women authors-Dictionaries. Includes bibliographical references and index. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The feminist encyclopedia of Italian literature / edited by Rinaldina Russell. THE FEMINIST ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ITALIAN LITERATURE Edited by RINALDINA RUSSELL The Feminist Encyclopedia of Italian Literature THE FEMINIST ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ITALIAN LITERATURE
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